Our Learning in the Network Age MOOC with FutureLearn is running again for two weeks from 24th July. You can sign up here.

The web is having a significant impact on the way we learn. Learning today is much more than just attending lectures and classes. It involves interacting with a powerful online and offline network of people, technology, services and information in ways, places and times of our choosing.

The course helps you to understand how we learn, to know more about digital inequalities and their effect on our learning networks, and to develop the skills and literacies to help you understand, grow, manage and activate your Personal Learning Network effectively.

Emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, automation, robotics and the Internet of Things, are also changing the future of work. A truck driver today may need to retrain as a drone pilot tomorrow. Therefore, we need to become flexible lifelong learners if we are to adapt to the demands of a rapidly changing education and work environment.

This time Nic and I are very pleased to be joined by two experienced Peer Mentors who participated as learners in the first running of the course. They have introduced themselves in another post.

We were really pleased with the interactions and responses to the first running of the course back in April. From the start it was clear that learners had a wide range of experiences and preferences:

Producing the network map was particularly popular:

A number of Southampton undergraduates directly contributed to the course content:

And it was good to see that educational professionals also obtained value from the course:

Even more, about 200 learners generated their unique Personal Learning Network map, enabling them to see what their networks look like and how they use them – as well as providing really useful insights for our research into this subject.

Please contact Lisa Harris on l.j.harris@soton.ac.uk or Nic Fair on nsrf1g12@soton.ac.uk if you would like to explore ways of integrating this MOOC with your own modules, staff development or induction programmes.

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]]>http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/5071-2/feed/05071Learning in the Network Age MOOC – starts 24th Aprilhttp://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/learning-network-age-mooc-starts-24th-april/
http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/learning-network-age-mooc-starts-24th-april/#respondSat, 08 Apr 2017 07:30:52 +0000http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/?p=5031Our latest course in the Web Science series of MOOCs is called Learning in the Network Age and it begins on 24th April. The course will be run by Lisa Harris and Nic Fair from the Web Science Institute and it includes contributions from a number of other university staff, students and alumni. The aim is to empower university students and staff around the world to develop their digital literacies and use their Personal Learning Networks effectively in order to maximise their lifelong learning potential.

Since the introduction of the World Wide Web and its associated mobile devices, societies and individuals have become much more connected to each other and to information than ever before. The Web is no longer simply an information resource, but also a space for interaction and creativity through which learners can develop a network value, potentially on a global scale.

In this world where knowledge is widely available, accessibility to it is determined and dependent on individuals’ ability to interact effectively with it. Therefore, from a very young age, we may best be characterised as networked individuals living and learning in a networked society, with our digital identity as important to our network value as our offline identity.

As a result, within the educational context, the Web and digital technology are no longer merely tools for teaching and learning, rather they are an integral part of the learning process, much as pen and paper used to be. This has had a profound effect on the way we learn. It has changed how we find, use and store information; how we communicate and collaborate; and how we create, present and share our ideas.

“This course is a timely addition to the Web Science series of MOOCs. It showcases the current research of our PhD students and the direct benefit their work brings to all learners in the digital age.”

The main topics covered in the course will be:

What it means to be a university learner in the Network Age.

The impact of Digital Differences on our learning networks.

Investigating what our Personal Learning Networks (PLN) look like and identifying patterns in how we currently use them.

Growing our PLNs and assessing the reliability of online information and services.

Managing our PLNs and our online identity.

Activating our PLN for learning purposes.

Exploring a wide range of digital tools to assist with growing, managing and activating our PLNs.

The MOOC is being used as a revision aid and engagement tool for students studying the Curriculum Innovation module Online Social Networks this semester. Its impact in terms of added value to their studies is being evaluated as a case study for the Researching Assessment Practices (RAP) Catalyst A project led by Professor Carol Evans and funded by HEFCE.

The MOOC serves the additional function of data collection for current PhD research, and it provides a clear example of partnering and co-creating with students, with implications for both REF and TEF. The research element of this MOOC is innovative because it does not collect data for research about MOOCs, which is common, but collects data for research into the subject area of the MOOC (Personal Learning Networks). This could become a new form of research methodology and provide these types of MOOC with an important future role for universities.

To join the course or find out more information, check out the course page on FutureLearn, contact us via our Twitter account @uosFLwebsci or search #FLlearningnetworks on social media.

Click here for more information about all upcoming University of Southampton MOOCs.

In the first part of the talk they discussed approaches to defining data literacy. Definitions still vary widely, encompassing skills and abilities, understanding of our ‘dataculture’ and the importance of ensuring that poor incentives do not impact on our use of data.

Johanna and Mark then moved on to approaches to developing data literacy. Again, a variety of methods were on display, from teaching in primary schools using smart city data, to working with rural communities through the arts, via library-based introductions to data that avoided the need for computers to the building of data literacy tools that can be accessed by anyone with web access.

Throughout they illustrated the talk with their own experiences of working with not-for-profits and individuals to engage with data through various low-tech, low-demand approaches that prioritised utilising data to meet need.

The presentation was followed by a lively debate on data literacy and its role in relation to other literacies, such as digital, media or information literacies.

]]>http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/wsi-lunch-seminar-data-literacy/feed/0501710 years of Web Science #WebSci10http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/10-years-web-science-websci10/
http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/10-years-web-science-websci10/#respondFri, 02 Dec 2016 14:18:43 +0000http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/?p=5009It was great to see so much energy and enthusiasm on display at the 10th Birthday of Web Science – both online and offline. The view from outside the London venue was spectacular and #WebSci10 was also trending on Twitter

]]>http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/10-years-web-science-websci10/feed/05009Real-time Twitter Visualisations for the US 2016 Presidential Electionshttp://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/real-time-twitter-visualisations-us-2016-presidential-elections/
http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/real-time-twitter-visualisations-us-2016-presidential-elections/#respondSun, 27 Nov 2016 19:21:48 +0000http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/?p=5006Authored by Dominic DiFranzo, and originally published on the Web Science Trust BlogCampfire visualisation of US election Twitter activity

For the 2016 US Presidential election, researchers at the University of Southampton with support from the EPSRC funded project SOCIAM, built a real-time data visualisation that combined traditional polling data with social media posts. The application was built and designed for the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute EMPAC Campfire, a novel multi-user, collaborative, immersive, computing interface that consist of a desk height panoramic screen and floor projection that users gather around and look into. The application is also a part of the Web Macroscope (a visualisation platform developed at the University of Southampton) and uses data from the Southampton Web Observatory.

Data collection for the polling data was taking from the Huffington Post Pollster API, which collects all the popular polls and their results. The social media data was collected on Twitter, using both their Streaming and Search API. The Streaming API was used to create a stream of data that included 1% of all tweets that had any of the popular and official hashtags and words used by each campaign to show support for their candidate. This hashtag list included tags like ‘TeamTrump’, ‘maga’ and ’draintheswamp’ in support for Donald Trump, and ‘LoveTrumpsHate’, ‘ImWithHer’, ‘StrongerTogether’, and ‘WhyIWantHillary’ in support for Hillary Clinton. Any tweets that mixed hashtags and words from both candidates were removed as this was normally done in a way to not show support for a candidate, but to react to supporters on the other side.

Results from the visualisations showed different levels of support on Twitter for each candidate over time. In the days leading to the election on November 8th, tweets in support for Trump were 1.5 times greater than those in support for Clinton. Interestingly, on the day of the election, this ratio switched and levelled off. Around the 2pm EST on November 8th, tweets in support for Clinton were almost equal to the number of tweets supporting Trump. Later in the night of the election, the ratio of support changed again, with tweets in support of Trump being 1.14 times larger than those in support for Clinton.

Another interesting result from the data was how many tweets that had geographic information tagged to them were overwhelmingly in support for Clinton throughout the day leading and on the election. Most tweets streamed through the visualisation had no GPS lat/long data embedded in them (these tweets often come from mobile phones using the Twitter App, with the optional GSP location data option enabled). As a whole, these geographic tweets are a small minority of the data collected from the Twitter Stream (about 1%). Interestingly, these geographic tweets supported Clinton 15 times more than Trump. Why this is the case is hard to say. It looks like Clinton supporters use mobile apps with location data more than Trump supporters.

]]>http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/web-science-students-interview-vice-chancellor/feed/05002Celebrating 10 years of Web Sciencehttp://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/celebrating-10-years-web-science/
http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/celebrating-10-years-web-science/#respondSat, 26 Nov 2016 09:38:23 +0000http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/?p=4999On Tuesday 29th November we will be celebrating 10 years of Web Science by bringing together an international group of leading web scientists and industry experts. We will be looking back at how the digital world has transformed all our lives over the last decade, and looking forward to what the next ten years and beyond might bring.

This global birthday party for Web Science will be live streamed on our global TV channel from five venues around the world, starting at the National University of Singapore at 9.30am GMT, then passing on to different Web Science Trust centres at Bangalore, Berlin, London and Chicago. You can watch the live stream here and engage with the event in real time via #websci10 on Twitter.

]]>http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/celebrating-10-years-web-science/feed/04999A triple bill of great eventshttp://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/triple-bill-great-events/
http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/triple-bill-great-events/#respondWed, 19 Oct 2016 07:42:58 +0000http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/?p=4972Adapted from a post published on the Digichamps blog written by Tom Davidson

Friday, 14 October was a busy day to round off a busy week for the Southampton Web Science Institute. On Tuesday, the Institute held the first distinguished lecture of the week, welcoming Anni Rowland-Campbell who spoke about social machines in a talk that was very interesting and well received. You can see some DigiChamp pictures of the event here. There were also two big events on Friday.

The first I was again unfortunately unable to attend (compulsory labs getting in the way!) but it paved the way for many more exciting developments in the future. It was of course the unveiling of Southampton as a base for the W3C’s UK and Ireland offices. I am reliably informed that this too was a great event, and one that cemented Southampton as at the forefront of Web Science on a global scale. If you wish to find out more about this, check out the hashtag #w3CatSoton.

Later that same day was a fantastically interesting talk from Professor Jeanette Hoffman entitled “Democratic self-determination in the digital age”. There were a huge number of people in eager attendance, and the talk definitely threw up some interesting questions. As was clear from the title, Professor Hoffman focused on the politicisation of the web. She drew on recent examples of apparent censor from Facebook (see the story here if you have not already) to explain how the web is shaped by the way we use it, and how who controls the web represents a blurring between the private and public spheres.

Drawing on other research (specifically Dave Clark’s Paper on the “Contingent Internet”, Professor Hoffman explaining how we could see the web changing democracy right now, today. She suggested that democracy could become not seeing your MP, but instead leaving a dent in the terms of service agreement of multi-national digital companies such as Facebook. She cited the example of the “Free the Nipple” protest and the various “sub-sub-sub clauses that remain as a legacy from that in Facebook’s terms of service. She also said this could be termed “human rights in the private sector”. Hoffman concluded with a number of “preliminary conclusions” she had encountered from her research thus far. She concluded the talk by then suggesting that a “modest, liberal” approach was best to stop the internet “from going down the drain”.

An increasing blurring of the lines between the social, political and technical and the private and public spheres #wsiJeanette#W3CatSoton

The conceptual nature of the talk led to a lot of questions from the interested audience. Some asked about specific points made in the talk and others asked Professor Hoffman on her hopes for the future. One questioner was quick to suggest that Hoffman had been too optimistic in her talk, to which Hoffman suggested she hadn’t been optimistic at all!

It was a fantastic talk to close the fantastic week for Southampton Web Science Institute. As a Web Science undergraduate student, it is fantastic to be able to attend important events such as these, and to hear people speak who are leading the way with what you are studying. Everyone at the Institute on every occasion I have been involved with them has been massively welcoming, and I very much look forward to the next event.

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]]>http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/triple-bill-great-events/feed/04972Web Science: the age of the social machinehttp://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/web-science-age-social-machine/
http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/web-science-age-social-machine/#respondWed, 12 Oct 2016 08:13:16 +0000http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/?p=4975Originally written and published on the Web Science Trust blog by Tim O’Riordan.

At the Web Science Institute seminar held earlier this week WST board advisor, Anni Rowland-Campbell spoke on the socio-technical changes that are happening in the world as a result of the Social Machine, which began with the World Wide Web. The talk focused on Tim Berners-Lee’s proposal of the Web where the “people do the creative work and the machine does the administration”1. Setting out to challenge this, Rowland-Campbell argued that the balance between “man” and “machine” is changing, and the idea of humanity is changing as a result. In her talk she provides a number of suggestions on how this symbiotic relationship between man and machine may play out.

]]>http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/web-science-age-social-machine/feed/04975A Personal Review of my Year as a Digichamphttp://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/personal-review-year-digichamp/
http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/personal-review-year-digichamp/#respondThu, 04 Aug 2016 07:54:32 +0000http://blog.soton.ac.uk/wsi/?p=4962Tom and I working on the Digital Literacy Session

Post authored by Tom Davidson and originally published on the Digichamps blog

Summer is traditionally thought of as a time of reflection for students (whatever you might think, it is!) and that is exactly what I aim to do in this article. Specifically, I’m going to reflect on my role as a DigiChamp over the course of the past year. I have been looking forward to writing this article as, given the fast-pace of the work and the wealth of opportunities, I have not had a great deal of time to reflect on the role so far!

I became involved in DigiChamps in late October 2015, after seeing some of the team working at the Web Science Institute Distinguished Lecture with JP Rangaswami. I emailed Lisa on the off chance that she might be looking for some undergraduates with a small about of experience to get involved, and thankfully she was! From the first meeting onward, I was sucked into a whirlwind of opportunity!

I’ll tentatively suggest there are 4 main strands to my current work as a DigiChamp, but am cautious of this being too restrictive! I’ll progress with them for the moment for the sake of simplicity…

The first area is my involvement in the Students As Creators and Change Agents Project in Southampton Business School. This project is a massive project, and has been fantastic to be a part of. There are so many dimensions to it! Along with Tom Rowledge, I have edited the Business School Co-Creation blog, presented at the Chartered Association of Business Schools Conference in Birmingham, created interactive modlets for incoming students, written a paper for the EduLearn ’16 Conference, attended the Higher Education Conference in Amsterdam, helped integrate digital feedback services into MANG1017 and more. All of these opportunities have been fantastic, and I have learnt a huge amount. Attending conferences especially, gives you a sense of how hard academics are working to improve our learning and our learning experience. For more information about this project, please see the blog here, and a look forward to continue working with the Co-Creation group in the future.

Here is a video we produced for the EduLearn Conference in Barcelona, to give you a bit more background on the project:

The next area has been my involvement with the Southampton Citizen Science Project. Again with Tom Rowledge (you might say we’re somewhat of a pair!) I have been involved in this project from the early stages. What started off as administrating a Facebook Group for the Citizens involved to interact, evolved into delivering sessions using iPads and the creation of a “showcase” website for the display of the research outcomes. The site can been viewed here. I have also really enjoyed working as a part of this project, which has allowed me to really improve my technical skills, in a very practical way through the development of the WordPress site. It has also for me embodied what Web Science is all about, a wide variety of disciplines brought together to solve a problem, technology being the key to unlocking the problem and the result being a better place to live for us all. It has been fantastic to be a part of this.

Another area I have done work for the Business School, is in my delivering of a session around Digital Literacy to those on the MANG1022 module. This was a really well received session, and hopefully benefitted those who attended. I personally felt I benefitted in having written and presented it, as I improved my delivery skills, and also my own knowledge around the importance of Digital Literacy. You can view the slides for this session here, or below.

The final area of my role as a DigiChamp, is the live-tweeting of various events and occasions that I have been lucky enough to be involved in. These events include a guest lecture by Dr Ted Nelson, and the launch of the University’s MENUS research group. This has been great as I have been able to see events I never would otherwise have seen…I might now be able to get a question on University Challenge right thanks to my attendance at the MENUS launch! I have also seen just how powerful Social Media can be as a tool at a live event.

I’ve done my best to summarise my year as a DigiChamp but hopefully now you can appreciate why that is a difficult job! Reflecting, I think the most important thing for me as a DigiChamp, is that I’ve been able to start applying exactly what I’m learning in lectures to real-world projects, both inside the University and out. This naturally keeps my very enthusiastic to continue as a DigiChamp, but also gives me a new enthusiasm for learning, as I can see how useful what I’m learning is…already!

I very much hope next year is as busy for me as a DigiChamp…who knows what opportunities the future will bring?! One thing I’d just like to do before signing off is to thank Dr Lisa Harris for all of her help and support, and fantastic leadership of the DigiChamps – thanks Lisa!

Will hopefully be sharing some more exciting project updates with you all soon.